Mods: What we’re reading #1 – pt2

The second part of this new feature, taking a look at what the mods are reading! We’ve got it all going on over here…

Rinn

What I read last:The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would; I was initially put off by the cover because it made it look very military sf. And whilst it is about the military, it’s more about the aspects we might not think about. For example, a few months in space is decades on Earth. What happens to the soldiers when they return and nothing is familiar?

Currently reading: Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. You might have seen this all over Goodreads and Twitter at the moment, because it’s just come out and people are going crazy. It is NOT a forgiving book so far. It also has Pratchett style witty footnotes, which I’m not sure about so far because, well, it’s not Pratchett. But we’ll see.

Sir Lancer

What I read last:The Warded Man – Peter V. Brett
– I really enjoyed this book (the first in the Demon Cycle series). All three of the main PoV’s were interesting and enjoyable and the book left off with me wanting to immediately start the second. The world was engaging and well built and explained. There was a little suspension of disbelief necessary and some points but in the end I still gave it five stars.

Currently reading: The Desert Spear – Peter V. Brett
– i enjoyed the first book so much I went straight to book 2. I am a little over half done and it is coming together. It starts a little slow because it starts off with 200 pages of a fourth POV that is a secondary character from book one that gets more fleshed out. It made the start a bit of a slog because you ended book one geared up to move on from that point. Now that I’m back with the original characters it has picked up significantly but the fourth POV was necessary to the series as a whole and still interesting in its own right.

What I’ll read next: Either The Daylight War by Peter V Brett or book #1 of Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Trilogy (I think it is called The Winter King) I will see how the rest of The Desert Spear goes and whether I want to keep going in the series or take a break for a book.

Paul

What I read last:White Sand by Brandon Sanderson
I was very interested to see Sandersons work in Graphic novel form and to see how much his world building carried across in the medium. Overall it worked very well, although I expected a more complete story, whereas the Graphic novel feels more like the prologue to a story.

Currently reading:Children of the Different by SC Flynn
This is a review copy for a book coming out next month. Its somewhere between post apocalyptic scifi and horror fantasy.
I agreed to review as I know the author relatively well from social media and the Irish book scene over the last while and the premise sounded interesting. Just started but it is sufficiently dark and nasty to keep my interest so far.

Currently reading:In the Stars You’ll Find Me by Bradley P Beaulieu
I fell in love with the authors new release last year , Twelve Kings so couldn’t resist backing this book as a Kickstarter. Its an interesting series of Sci Fi Short Stories by the author. I’m over half way in and while one or two didn’t quite work for me overall its been a decent collection.

What I’ll read next: This is always a difficult question as it can depend on my mood when I finish a current read.
Currently tilting towards NK Jemisins latest , The Obelisk Gate but may change my mind and start The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan

Nic

What I read last: The Number Mysteries by Marcus du Sautoy
This is basically a dumbed-down version of one of the first year modules in the maths degree I’m currently studying for. A quite interesting, easy read for those interested in numbers and mathematical theory.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
I read this on my honeymoon and really liked it. Not really a lot of action, but it didn’t diminish my enjoyment any; Becky Chambers has a real knack for writing compelling interactions and her descriptions of alien races are some of the best I’ve encountered in any SF book.

Currently reading: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James.
I was given this as a Christmas present and I’m just getting round to it now. Well written – the author does a great job of telling the story from a number of different viewpoints – it is a deserved winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Although it is quite a long book, and quite slow to read at times (long passages of Jamaican patois can be trying!), it is an interesting, challenging tome!

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
I struggled to get into the first couple of chapters, but I’m really enjoying this now. I love this kind of SF – science-heavy and a little bit weird and mysterious – I’m looking forward to getting deeper into this book.

By Light Alone by Adam Roberts
After reading Jack Glass and Yellow Blue Tibias, both of which I enjoyed a great deal, I was keen to look further into Adam Roberts back catalogue. The premise of this book intrigued me, but it’s the prose contained within that’s the defining element of this book, and unfortunately that is not a good thing to me. This has one of the lowest average GR ratings for any book I’ve read recently and I can see exactly why. The main character is not very likeable and I’m struggling to motivate myself into finishing this. It’s a shame really because I have high hopes for Adam Roberts; Jack Glass left me with the impression that Roberts has a style akin to Iain M. Banks, and I feel that if anyone can continue the Culture series, he could give it solid try!

What I’ll read next: Speaking of Iain M. Banks, I plan to re-read State of the Art, his short story collection. I’ve also been itching to start the Shadowmarch series by Tad Williams but I’m not sure I’d be able to commit to such a long series at the moment, I’d probably be reading it until next August!
Other than that, I tend to choose books on impulse from my ever-growing library! I’m fascinated by dice and I’ve recently bought a D60 and a D120, so I’m going to use them to randomize my reading choices for when I really can’t make up my mind!

That brings us to the end of #1 of this feature. Hope you enjoyed reading, and maybe added a few more books to your TBR piles! Keep a look out on our GR’s to see what we’re up to.

What did you last read? What are you reading now? What are you planning to read next?

The Daylight War does the same thing as The Desert Spear with introducing another POV character and going into their backstory in extreme detail. It’s a bit better in that the story is woven in with the current timeline, but those chapters can still be quite frustrating. I think we get a 6th POV in that book too… but that one might not be until book 4 (I’m pretty sure it’s 3 though).

Dragons & Jetpacks is a book group for all lovers of science fiction and fantasy. We started out on Goodreads in 2013, and have recently decided to start a group blog to bring discussions to a wider audience!